State needs to find right solution to opioid crisis

As a veteran, it is sad to see so many citizens in the country I love slip toward addiction.

Opioid abuse truly has become a nationwide epidemic. While I support creative approaches to handling this crisis, constraining our health care system's supply of legal opioids by taxing its distribution model puts patients' health in jeopardy — particularly among the veteran community.

A recent bill in the Minnesota Legislature to tax opioids distributed into the stateseemed well-intentioned, but it was deeply flawed. This sort of short-sighted policy could have been felt throughout the medical system, all the way down to veterans who often need medication and rehabilitative care to manage pain.

How, you might ask? Not surprisingly, blanket taxes on the supply chain disrupt supply. And the one proposed in Minnesota could have led to higher premiums and insurance costs and even limited many veterans' access to care altogether.

Solutions to this complicated crisis will not be easy to find, but we must encourage our lawmakers to consider the unintended consequences. I hope that our legislators disregard future attempts to enact policies that would burden the care my fellow service members receive - and that includes, in many cases, legitimate pain management from opioid treatments.